that of his progenitors, and of the society in which he moved,—that death, so far from being the consequence of original sin, is an essential part of the system of organisation, being implied in birth, growth, maturity, decay, and old age, as completely as spring and summer imply autumn and winter. (Combe's Constitution, chap. i. et seq.) Yes, nature will teach you all this, and much more. But how different her lessons, regarding death, its cause, utility, and consequences, from the lore of Christian theology! How much more rational, more in harmony with the rest of creation, and more worthy of a perfectly just, wise, and benevolent Deity are the former than is the latter, which teaches that, owing to the sin of Adam, man is capable of performing no good act acceptable to his Maker, that all his vices are vices of his nature, which have belonged to all generations of men from the present to the first that ever lived, and which his successors will for ever inherit.-that God is his enemy, and regards his nature as not having been created by him, but as the work of the Devil! How this makes him regard his fellow-beings as he is told that God regards him! How it alienates his affections from both God and man! How reckless it makes him as to his moral obligations to either! How it makes him dread the one as an implacable foe, and hate the other as a base villain! SECTION V.-THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT AT VARIANCE WITH GOD'S WORKS IN NATURE-DENIES THE ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY IS REPUGNANT TO REASON-AN RACE. It may be urged that although the Christian theology teaches the doctrine of eternal torments and of the fall of man, yet it teaches that an atonement has been made by Christ for man's sins, so as not to leave him in the hopeless state just described. But the doctrine of the atonement, like all other Christian dogmas, is evidently nothing more than a creation of man's fertile brain. The very notion of an atonement is at utter variance with all the works of God in nature, wherein the infringement of each of his laws, is attended with its own punishment. This doctrine, as taught by the most celebrated Christian divines, depicts God as a revengeful Being, who, because his mandates have been disreguarded, curses creation, condemns the whole human race to endless misery, and plunges his sword into the innocent bosom of his only Son, who is also a God! Such a notion of Deity sets man's reason at defiance, and wounds all his better feelings. That God, in all whose works shines forth infinite benevolence, should doom all mankind to the ever-burning flames of hell, because the first man he ever created disobeyed his will in eating a certain apple, that another God, namely, God the Son, in order to appease the wrath of God the Father, and incline him to overlook man's offence, was obliged to descend to this world, and be put to death on a cross, between two theives, and that, after all this, only a portion of the human race, will God the Father, exempt from eternal perdition, are such a complication of blasphemy and nonsense, so widely at variance with any just notion of the perfections of Deity, that reason rejects with indignation. Christian divines, however, gravely argue that, man having sinned against an infinite God, his sin was infinite, and therefore required an infinite atonement, which could be made only by God, who, consequently, took human nature and died on the cross. But these divines appear to forget that they have "three persons in the Godhead," equal in all attributes, and that all the attributes of each are, consequently, infinite. To say nothing of the absurd notion of more than one infinity, if the Son and the Holy Ghost are equal with the Father, man must have sinned against all three, and the infinite justice of each must have, thereby, been offended. Still, we hear of the Son giving satisfaction only to the justice of the Father. Did not the justice of the Holy Ghost, and even of the Son himself, alike demand satisfaction? Christian writers ignore the justice of these two Persons of the Godhead. But why? Were they not Divine Personages when man sinned? Or are God the Son and God the Holy Ghost alike destitute of the attribute of justice? The natural inference from Christian theology is, that God the Son is not possessed of the attribute of justice, that God the Father is destitute of the attribute of mercy, and that God the Holy Ghost is destitute of both these attributes. Again, who made the atonement? Christ, by his sufferings and death. Was Christ God? Yes. Then God suffered and died; which is an absurdity-an impossibility! "No," answers Christian theology, "the Godhead and manhood were joined together in one person, still only the manhood of Christ suffered and died." Then it was only the man Jesus who died; and the atonement of a man could not be infinite. On the other hand, if "the Godhead and the manhood were joined together in one person, never to be divided," then God must have died.— (See Harris's Lectures on Trinitarianism.) Further, if the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be viewed as only one God, then man must have sinned against this "Triune God," and therefore against Christ as part of the Godhead; so that on this view of the question, again, we are driven to the same conclusion,-that either he gave satisfaction for sin committed against himself, or that man had sinned only against the Father and the Holy Ghost. But if Christ gave satisfaction for sin committed against himself, to whom gave he that satisfaction?-to himself, by dying? And if there was an infinite satisfaction required for the sin commited against Christ himself, as an infinite Person- a Deity, where is the satisfaction given for sin committed against the Father and the Holy Ghost,-both infinite, and both, therefore, demanding an infinite satisfaction? The more the doctrine of the atonement is investigated, the more glaring its absurdity and impossibility appear. It represents the Deity as withholding his mercy, even from the penitent, till a full satisfaction is made to justice, and therefore precludes the idea that God is either merciful or forgiving; nay, in asserting that the Father sent his own innocent Son to be punished instead of guilty men, it denies that God is just. A doctrine which transfers the guilt from the guilty to the innocent, and makes man sin in fact and suffer by proxy, whilst it makes Christ sin by proxy and suffer in fact, is contrary to every principle of moral rectitude. The transference of guilt is not only unjust, but impossible; for an innocent person cannot feel himself guilty. If, with Christians, we imagine that only Christ's human nature suffered for the sins of men, still, he could never thus make an infinite atonement to pacify the infinite anger of the Father. For, if he suffered only in his human nature, he could, as man, have no terror of a guilty conscience; and could suffer nothing but the pain which ordinarily attended the death of crucifixion. Will any one dare assert that, as God, he could suffer the terrors of a guilty conscience? Again, if he was innocent, will any one dare assert that, as man, he did suffer the terrors of a guilty conscience? Such an atonement as that imagined by Christians is utterly impossible. Indeed, any atonement for sin is impossible; for every sin, or violation of God's laws, produces its own punishment. A sin, without its consequent punishment, is as impossible as a cause without an effect. The latter is, by the author of nature, made inevitably to follow the former, in order to correct the errors of man. In a word, the whole doctrine of the atonement is a tissue of the grossest absurdities that can be imagined, tending to brutalise man, and outrage the moral character of God. That the Being who pervades the universe was confined to the womb of Mary, that the infinite Spirit, who alone possesseth immortality, was scourged, crucified, and put to death, on Mount Calvary, for the sins of men, is the climax of blasphemous nonsense, the notion of which can have originated only among barbarous people, who believed that the life of a man was a most precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity; and who, therefore, as we have seen, very frequently offered up human sacrifices, as atonements and redemptions.* That this fundamental Christian doctrine-the atonement, is of a grossly pagan origin, has already been amply shown in the course of this work. (See pp. 223-233. 322-334, 429, 430, 527, 528.) The following additional proofs, however, are given. The Scholiast on Aristophanes (Plut. lin. 453.) says that those who were offered as expiating sacrifices to the Gods, on account of some calamity, were called, ka appara, purifiers. He also tells us that this custom prevailed among the Romans, as well as the Athenians, and that it was called kalapiojos, purification. (Vid. in Equit. lin. 1133.) Dr. Dodridge says that those who were thus made expietory sacrifices to the heathen deities, were taken from the dregs of the people, "and loaded with curses, affronts, and injuries, in the way to the altar at which they were to bleed." He also adds,-"Suidas says that these wretched victims, were called, каỹаρμата, as their death was esteemed an expiation: and when their ashes were thrown into the sea, the very words Tivov Пεpinμa, Tivov Kadappa, Be thou a propitiation, were used in the ceremony.” Now, in the same manner precisely is Jesus's blood said to "cleanse (raapia) us from all sin" (1 John i. 7.),—to have purged (kaapioμov) our sins,-purged (kaapıZetai) with blood, &c. (Heb. i. 3; ix. 14, 22, 23.) The Mexicans worshipped a man for whole year before they sacrificed him as an atonement for sin. (Bicart's Ceremonies.) The Lacedemonians frequently offered human sacrifices to their Diana, as an atonement for sin. (Pausan. iii. 16.) A Christian writer, in the Penny Cyclopædia, in a long article, under the word Atonement, very justly remarks that "the practice of atonement is remarkable for its antiquity and universality."-" The practice of general atonement, among the heathen nations, whatever may have been its origin, must have been greatly encouraged by a certain article in the popular creed."-" At the earliest date to which Renounce, therefore, O man! this remnant of paganism, and embrace the religion which thy Creator teaches in nature, whose laws punish your sins-not as a vengeance taken for injury or insult-not because Divine justice would be impugned by pardoning the guilty, and yet would be vindicated by punishing the innocent in his stead-but because such a punishment arises from the very nature of the offence, as an inevitable sequence, and has the benevolent effect of preventing the repitition of the offence. To know that there is no pardon for violating the Creator's laws in nature, to know that every act must produce its own consequence, is a better incentive to virtue, and a stronger motive to secure happiness than the dream of a thousand atonements for sin. Nothing can more strongly incite us to morality than to know that every act is irrevocable, and must bear its own consequences,-that every deed we commit must remain, for ever, inscribed on the tablets of Nature, and bear its own fruit-either pain and misery, or pleasure and happiness. Were all mankind actuated by this motive, the human race would soon make such strides as it has never yet made in morality and the means of happiness. Man needs not go further than his own feelings in proof that the desire of happiness is the moving principle of his being, permeating every emotion of his nature, from birth to old age, and forsaking him only when his heart ceases to beat and his lungs to breathe. According to the very laws of his constitution, he has no power to desire misery, for its own sake; and if he thoroughly knew, beforehand, the consequence of every action, he would commit no act productive of his misery. The want of knowledge of his own constitution and of external objects, is the chief cause of man's present woe. Accordingly, we find that the progressive happiness of the human race, in past ages, has been in exact proportion to the experience acquired of new facts in the operations of nature. Prompted by his innate desire of happiness, man has at length, however, discovered much of the means of his happiness,-knowledge of the operations of external nature, and of the mode of adapting them to the wants of his own constitution. Always desiring happiness, and gradually acquiring knowledge of the manner to obtain it, man cannot fail, ultimately, to become happy; or in other words, cannot fail to become happy in proportion as knowledge of the various means of avoiding misery increases throughout the world. The admirable adaptation of everything in nature to his wants, proves that his happiness, in the present world is attainable. Every one must daily feel the falsity of the gloomy Scriptural description given of him, in common with every individual of his race.—that his nature is innately vicious, his thoughts always evil, and his heart desperately wicked. Who does not feel that he might be much better, much more virtuous, and much more happy than the present condition of the society in which he turns, and by which he is influenced, permits him to be? Who has not felt the ardour of love and the glow of we can carry our inquiries by means of the heathen records, we meet with the same notion of atonement."-" If we pursue our inquiries through the accounts left us by the Greek and Roman writers of the barbarous nations with which they were acquainted, from India to Britain, we shall find the same notion and similar practices of atonement." So much for the heathen origin of the notion of an atonement. benevolence thrilling his bosom? Who, in contemplating the fitness of surrounding nature to satisfy his most sanguine desires, can doubt his capability of enjoying happiness to any degree concieveable? And who can put a limit to the degree of happiness which man, by a knowledge and an observance of the laws of nature, is destined to enjoy? His present misery, evidently, arises from his violation of these laws; and the degree of happiness he enjoys is the result of the degree of obedience he renders to them. General obedience to these laws, therefore, would secure to mankind general happiness. Now, Christianity does not, any more than other religions founded on book-revelations, inculcate obedience to these laws; but, on the contrary-as it has been amply shown, in foregoing portions of this workteaches man to disregard the world, and all within it. It does not teach as how to be happy in this world-does not even promise us happiness here, but refers us for that ever desired boon to another world, of which it gives but a very obscure and confused description. It makes no provision whatever for the excercise of man's intellectual faculties, with which he has been endowed by his Maker, evidently for the purpose of studying the works of nature:-of these it takes no cognizance. The same may be said of man's natural feelings or affections--the fundamental powers of the human mind-such as conjugal, filial, and parental love, the proper exercise of which is of more importance than any other toward securing human happiness. Indeed, whenever the author of Christianity referred to the domestic affections, he invariably discountenanced their exercise, and represented them as evil propensities. The foregoing fact will account, in a great measure, for the miserable state of the Christian world at the present moment, as well as that in which it has been during the eighteen centuries this religion has been attempting to ameliorate mankind. There is nothing more capable of demonstrative proof than that Christianity has utterly failed to teach man to be virtuous; nay, there Is no fact more obvious than that much of the misery endured by the inhabitants of Christian countries, during the last eighteen centuries, has been the immediate result of Christianity. The more it is spread, the more it demoralises the world. The following brief citation from Christian writings may serve to show its evil effects, as admitted by its own adherents:- Wyvil, in his work on Christian Intolerance, says, in 1809,— "The barbarities which professed Christians have committed, under the name of wholesome severities against unbelievers, and even against their own brethren of the same faith, exceed in horror whatever acts of sanguinary cruelty have been perpetrated by tyrants of every other species. And such deeds of cruelty and injustice have been sometimes committed, not by pretended believers of the Gospel, but by men sincerely attached to it." Chandler, in his History of Persecution, exclaims,-" What confusions and calamities, what ruins and desolations, what rapines and murders, have been introduced into the world, under the pretended authority of Christ, and of supporting and propagating Christianity!" In the seventeenth century, Dr. Scott, in his Christian Life, says of the five hundred Christian sects which he believed then to exist," It is five hundred to one but that every one is damned; because every one damns all but itself; and itself is damned by four hundred and ninety-nine." Bogue |